ON ANTHOXANTHUM PUELII. 5 



A. pygmseum, Bn. de la Pylaie, 1831. Herb. J. Gay. 

 A. Lloydii, Jord. Bor. FI. da Cent., Ed. iii., p. 697. 



A. oduratum, L., has been subdivided by some botanists, and its 

 wide range — from the Canaries to Greenland — would suggest that 

 more than one species is included under this name. There are in 

 England, as Prof. Babington observes (Man. Br. Bot., ed. 7, p. 412), 

 "two forms or species : (1) with purple anthers in meadows, (2) with 

 dull yellow anthers in woods." A hairv form has been described as a 

 distinct species by M. Dumortier {A. viUosum. Agr. Belg., p. 129 and 

 Tab. X.), but M. Crepin in his Fl. Belg. etudiee par frair., Fasc. iii., 

 p. 30, remarks that Dumortier has since considered his A. villosum a 

 doubtful var., and M. Crepin himself savs it is certainly only a form of 

 the common species, and that intermediate variations occur. Boreau 

 describes A. mllosum as a species in the Fl. du Centre, Ed. iii.. p 

 697. Eeichenhanh dpdorihpR it as a var. and gives a plate, *' Deutsoh. 

 Fl.," Series i., vol. ii., p. 50. and pi. clxxxii., fig. 498. Lange, ''Fl. 

 Hisp.," i., p. 37, takes the same view of the plant as Reich , and 

 quotes Reich. Ic. f. 1725. An Alpine form of A. odoratum occurs in 

 Switzerland, and a similar one, if not the same, in Iceland. The 

 Swiss plant I have seen abundantly, and very generally, at a height 

 of 5000 feet and upwards above sea level ; it is tall and rather 

 slender with somewhat lax narrow and acute spikes ; both the awns 

 of the neutral florets usually exceed the glumes, the longer awn ex- 

 ceeding the longer glume by about one-half or one-third the length 

 of the latter ; the fertile flower is about one-half or two-thirds the 

 length of the barren pales. Gaudin in Flora Helv., vol. i, p 62, has 

 a var. *' /8 Panicula ramosiore, aristis longiorilus, foliis glabris. In 

 Alpibus." Bertoloni, in Flor. Ital , vol. i., p. 326, remarks, **Planta 

 alpestris longe minor, gaudet que racemo ex luteo-viridi purpurasceiite ; 

 in hac valvas calycinge glabrae, corollinae parce pilosae." 



There are specimens from Iceland in the Kew and Brit. Mus. 

 Herbs., also in the Herb of the Jardindes Plantes. These latter are 

 labelled ^^ A. odoratum, Jj.^ Islande, Voyage de la Recherche, 1836. 

 M. Robert." In one specimen the longer awn exceeds the longer 

 glume by about one-fourth of its length, the spike is dense, the plant 

 erect, about a foot high and not branched. In another specimen the 

 awn exceeds the glume by about one-fifth its length, the spike 

 is also dense, the plant erect and unbranched. I find the length 

 of the awn is very variable in A. odoratum; the length of the 

 fertile flower with respect to that of the barren ones also varies. 

 I have hitherto failed to refer these variations and others of ^. odoratum 

 to any distinct forms, but a closer and longer acquaintance with the 

 plant might make it possible to systematise them. 

 Description of Tab. 157. 



Anthoxanthum Puflii, Lee. & Lam., from specimens in the British Museum, 

 collected in July, 1872, at Mobberlev, Cheshire, by Mr. J. Britten : a plant natu- 

 ral size in early flower and a branch in fruit. 1, a spikelet ; 2, upper glume ; 3, 

 contents of the glumes ; 4, 5, upper barren pale, side and back view ; 6, 7, lower 

 barren pale, side and back view ; 7a, summit of the same ; 8, fertile flower in 

 bud ; 9, same in flower with the pales separated ; 10, lower pale of fertile flower 

 flattened out. (1 — 9 magnified about 5 diam.) 



